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July 18, 2017

From mental disorder to merely distressed -- how transvestites were transformed in four short years

Two movements that shot to the top in the last few years were gay marriage and transgender sex. Those of us out here in the unwoke flyover country were taken by surprise at how fast those two systems progressed past the point of no return.

Of particular interest is the status of those people who think they were born with the wrong genitalia. There was a time when someone who thought he/she was a man/woman born in a woman/man's body was considered to have a mental disorder. Not any more. Now, it's reversed. If you can't accept who they think they are, then you are the one with the mental disorder.

In 1987 homosexuality was struck from the DSM by a majority vote of the APA members. In 2012, transvestitism, was also eliminated from the DSM-5 (fifth edition), replaced gender identity disorder and further redefined and softened the previous personality disorder into gender dysphoria. The change in terminology removed all implication and designation that transvestitism was a mental illness. Dysphoria is defined as the distress a person experiences as a result of the sex and gender they were assigned at birth.

With transvestitism finally voted out of the DSM, in June 2015 LGBT rights groups had one urgent agenda item for President Barack Obama: End the ban on transgender people serving in the military. It wasn’t that transgender people were straining red rope barriers, lining up at recruiting stations to serve in the military in a rush of abject patriotism; no, acceptance into the military allowed transgenders free government-paid sexual reassignment surgery. No longer was transvestitism considered a mental disorder, it was now considered a medically correctable condition, like a cleft lip and palate.

It's probably fair to say, "follow the money," since recognition of gay marriage and transvestitism could qualify more people for government largess, whether sharing in spousal rights to government payouts or for subsidized sex change drugs and operations. But that's just part of it. The need for recognition for one's differentness has to factor in somehow, especially in the age of identity politics.